“New attack on IT business in Ukraine”: the company talks about corporate conflict

One of the largest Ukrainian IT companies reported a new attack as a result of the old corporate conflict. Representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine participated in the attack.

Ukrainian media published a statement about searches of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) in one of the largest IT companies in the country – Lucky Labs. The source of such information was a letter sent by the unknown to the electronic mailboxes of the publishing houses, allegedly from the company itself.

Soon an official statement of the press service of Lucky Labs appeared. According to it the searches really took place, but they did not concern Lucky Labs. The searches were conducted in the offices of a partner company – Soft Solutions Ltd, which is located in the same building. The reason for the visit of the SSU was a criminal case in which a completely different company is mentioned: IT Solutions. Such company is not affiliated with Lucky Labs, but simply has a very similar name to one of its partners, Soft Solutions LTD. Lucky Labs says the grounds for the searches in the offices of its partner are completely flimsy.

“The representatives of the Security Service were quite okay with the absence of the sought-after enterprise. So they carefully studied the premises of Soft Solutions LTD.” – Lucky Labs reports.

The fact of the search immediately became an occasion for media provocation. The unknown created a clone of Lucky Labs email box and sent a letter about the searches to journalists from a fake account on behalf of the company. The fake nature of that letter was confirmed by one of the largest editing organisations of Ukraine LIGA.net, which also became a victim of swindlers.

The press service of Lucky Labs is confident that the media wave is another attempt to pressure the company by the same opponents who have repeatedly attacked the company. Lucky Labs also believes that “some employees of the Security Service of Ukraine were involved in this escapade.”

“We are dealing with an unprecedented made-to-order search in the company Soft Solutions LTD, starting from the obviously unjustified court decision for a search, ending with the presence of the SSU on behalf of the military prosecutor’s office in the office of the IT company.” – the company claims.

Lucky Labs press service mentions an old corporate conflict in an official press release. It is said that this is what could have triggered the pre-staged searches and provocation in the media.

HuffPost studied the history of attacks on Lucky Labs. According to their investigation, an American businessman from Ukraine, the owner of the company Noosphere Ventures Max Polyakov, may be related to previous attacks. For some time he was Lucky Labs co-founders’ partner, and in recent years the company has been involved in a corporate conflict with his participation. Later, a number of Ukrainian media reported on the involvement of Polyakov in the large-scale attacks of the SSU on IT business in Ukraine. More than 30 Ukrainian software manufacturers were attacked. Ukrainian News wrote that Polyakov could directly make an order for searches in the company Lucky Labs in 2016.

“The searches in the offices of the company coincide with the decisions of the British Virgin Islands Court on case, in which LuckyLabs investors – Rustam Gilfanov and Sergei Tokarev – confronted the American businessman from Zaporozhye (Ukraine) Max Polyakov. The essence of the conflict is a dispute over how much is the block of shares transferred to Gilfanov and Tokarev in the holding company PhoenixHoldings is worth. Polyakov’s company gave it at the expense of debt on another project. As a result of the trial, Max Polyakov could lose 12 million US dollars: this is the exact amount Gilfanov and Tokarev estimated their claims,” – Ukrainian News described the situation in 2016.

The legal battle between Max Polyakov and Lucky Labs’ founders Rustam Gilfanov and Sergei Tokarev is known to keep going until today.